Franciszka

By Richard D. Colbert

    This is a story of a young woman, Franciszka, who came as a Polish immigrant to begin a new life in American.  Events start with her story as a reflection, a family mystery, and tragedy which encompassed over 30 plus years.  Now, after a hundred years, I believe this story mirrors what many families and immigrants faced in a 1920's society, as might face today.   A family has split apart with a mother and her children suffering a tremendous personal loss.  It is a journey of ups and downs that will ring just as true to the politics and pandemic evident we saw during the beginnings of 2020. I offer a story of my grandmother, in her person, with words she would need us to hear.  

     The hardships and horrors that immigrant women faced in the early 1900s are hard to imagine and rarely fully understood today.  A family in crisis would expect charity services to step in to help release a working person from the burden of the family and to be able to recover from injuries and then seek work.  What was once an everyday life would be gone, and no one might ask if wife and mother are OK.   A question, "where are my children"?  might receive no answers.  Depression and gray days seemingly never end.  The community believes this situation contributes to developing mental illness and requires care for self by others.

    We explore hidden stories and look at the journeys which took a family into a new world.   Each of Franciszka's children has now passed, and they could offer more accounts, but this reading is my grandmother's time of memories.   

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard D. Colbert
• Release date: Aug 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201596750

Richard D. Colbert

Richard D. Colbert is an Educator, Genealogist, and Writer. He graduated with a degree in Sociology from Excelsior College in New York and completed his Master's Degree in Education at Boston University. He is currently a Secondary School teacher and educator in Washington State. His research efforts included multiple weeks reviewing data from collections on-site at the Congressional Library and Pictorial Achieves in Washington D.C. The Franciszka story presents a blend of collected life struggles, a woman's internal desire for personal survival and her continual love of children. Richard D. Colbert believes that learning never stops and life always has lessons to teach us, thus he has made family and sharing his passion.

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FRANCISZKA

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Richard D. Colbert

Introduction

This is a story of a young woman, Franciszka, who came as a Polish immigrant to begin a new life in American.  Events start with her story as a reflection, a family mystery, and tragedy which encompassed over 30 plus years.  Now, after a hundred years, I believe this story mirrors what many families and immigrants faced in a 1920's society, as might face today.  A family has split apart with a mother and her children suffering a tremendous personal loss.  It is a journey of ups and downs that will ring just as true to the politics and pandemic evident we saw during the beginnings of 2020. I offer a story of my grandmother, in her person, with words she would need us to hear. 

The hardships and horrors that immigrant women faced in the early 1900s are hard to imagine and rarely fully understood today.  The shared experience was to become a working man’s wife in the early 20th Century.  A wife that worked long hours, with a husband likely a distant and hard man. One purpose for the wife was to be continually pregnant to produce more children.  The children come as an expected religious family duty or just more likely to provide help to increase family income. Life’s cast for hard-working immigrants came from a very rigid and strict moral mindset.  Real stories rarely surface that reflect an actual mother's struggles with all the bizarre twists and turns. Consider a young girl with multiple births and the responsibilities at home with the outside world in a crisis.  The husband becomes injured and unable to work, and it adds to the pressure and constant need to balance care of the house with no support systems.  The loss of income would be enough to cause worry, but outside in the community, pandemic flu is raging, and hundreds are dying.  The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918/1919 was no different than what everyone experienced with the 2020 Covid19 health restrictions. All this to stop the spread of sickness.  The religious community still requires the devout to attend church weekly and volunteer support to aid others in the community.  The family household has demands, and husbands do push with every command, caring only for their personal needs.

What would you expect from family and neighbors to help this household recover from financial suffering and potential illnesses?  As a girl, mother,  and wife,  life would be overwhelming with hours of sleep deprivation and worry.  The children may have a sickness, and a mother would struggle with self-identity issues and depression.  The family in-laws and neighbors often care only for their own. The Church and community charity services strained to provide any natural shelter and feared for bad influences on the children.  The County Courts and Social Services stand ready to step in. 

A family in crisis, with nothing left, would expect charity services to step in to help release a working person from the burden of the family to be able to recover from injuries and then seek work.  What was once an everyday life would be gone, and no one might ask if wife and mother are OK.  A question, where are my children?  might receive no answers.  Depression and gray days seemingly never end.  The community often believes this situation contributes to developing mental illness and requires care for self by others.

Regardless of the cause, a woman’s lot in life may become dark with no end in sight. This was a common stigma during the 1920’s era that often-caused families to experience much trauma. Children do not always forget, and the heart will reach for those that need help. After many years, in a community similar to what we experience today, a door opens for our person of interest, Frances' (Franciszka).  We explore hidden stories and look at the journeys which took a family into a new world.  Each of Franciszka's children has now passed, and they could offer more accounts, but this reading is my grandmother's time of memories.  

Chapter 1:

Reflections

Elma, Washington Nursing Home

Mrs. Frances Phillips is resting on a patio chair just outside her room, it is a pleasant evening, and soft clouds float over a bright blue sky.  Garden flowers are in bloom and a slight perfume filters on a gentle morning breeze. Images of another land filled her visions, familiar sights and sounds of another time and place, somewhere she'd rather be. Was I ever in this place of family noise and activity, or is this just a distant dream? Memories are dusty and vague but comfortably familiar.  They fade quickly, and people close by call for mealtime. People move around a large room with deliberate purpose and sit at tables cluttered with a simple fair of soup, bread, and coffee. There is little conversation, as always. An evening stillness slowly comes as the light of day disappears – another day gone; another day passed. The days always seemed so long, but then the night comes. Was it a relief? My room is small, but there is a bed, chair, and dresser.  Sounds are everywhere now, and everything seems busy; there are sounds of distance, soft rain, then trains, and suddenly the freshness of ocean and wind, yet it all drifts into sleep. Suddenly again, the sounds come, young children are rushing about in a field of green, and animals lay lazily under the sun.  Is it real? No, the noise is just another person near calling out for someone – am I that woman? Do I need help? Who am I even calling out for? The sudden realization of me being alone hits again. 

The story of a life can be one with many hurts, desires, and hope for pleasant times.  I was born Francizska Dabek, in Nisko, Galicia, Austria-Hungary Empire, on 19 September 1886, with no intention of ever being anything other than Francizska.  My father was Wojciech Dabek, who married Katarzyna Szewczyk.  A priest blessed their future at the local Catholic Church in Raclawice parish.  The land of my birth belonged to great landed estates which demanded working people or peasants to tend their agriculture for the riches of others.  My parents were one family of Galician peasants who produced many children to help work the land.  My mother, Katarzyna gave birth to 14 children; 3 sets of twins died young in Galicia, so eight live in my memory: five brothers, Józef, Jana, Szczepana, Wladyslaw, and Antoni and two sisters, Mariska and Wiktorya.  I am the fourth child that survived behind Józef, Jana, and Mariska

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Everyone worked the land, but hunger and dirt dominated our young lives.  As the new Century came upon us, food and money were hard to come by, and our father could not provide for the care of the household, and children were ignored. The owners of the land went through hard times, and their troubles only added to the misery of our family of peasants.  My father and brothers farmed with the simplest of tools, pulling and pushing dirt to plant cabbage, greens, and short stubby wheat.  This was our lot, and it lasted for many long years. 

When I reached the age of eight, I had already become the protector of my younger brothers and sister.  Then one day, as the evening went dark, the family crowded together for what food was left for us. The older boys in the family decided that our life could no longer continue in this way.  This land of our birth could no longer support its people, and hunger drove a desperate need for change.  My mother was a strong woman and often did the heaviest kind of work, so I tended the house as each

child had a chore. As soon as my father left for work, she would lock the bread away in the cupboard.  By the time of my ten or eleventh year, everyone always seemed sickly and weak and often spent many hours each day crying.  My father was always greeted upon return from his work with complaints of need and desperation. My older brothers had to work for trade goods.  My sister Mariska, by 1898, was a pretty teenager and attracted the attention of boys from the Paterek family.  I was becoming strong for my age and by 13 was sent out as a servant into a better family.  I received little for my long hours, but it meant milk and bread to share.

Mariska’s new boyfriends brought stories of gifts from distant places and news that told of a better life.  My father went with this family to the Catholic Church and met a priest visiting from America,

Father Anzelm Mlynarczyk.    The priest had written letters to neighbors and spoke of needed help to build a new community that had land and many vacancies in the countryside.  Such a trip would be costly, but many, predominantly male immigrants, would be helped if they could do manual labor.  There was news of hope.  One of the Paterek boys, Josef, took to the